Timelines
by orsumfenix
Summary: Because to see someone's timeline is an amazing thing, and Ianto Jones can do it all the time.


_**So, the cannon timeline itself is a bit messed up, but whatever. **_

**Each time he looks in their eyes, he sees their timelines. **

When Ianto Jones first joins Torchwood Three, naïve in his desperation to save Lisa, he ignores the flashes he sees, the images that dance before his eyes when he looks in someone's eyes.

He tries to keep his head down, not willing to view the irises and pupils that create the images. When someone speaks to him directly (which, in itself, is rare), he will focus on their lips, concentrating on what they're saying, refusing to see what they're looking at.

He looks at the coffee he's made as he hands it out, focusing on the colours of them, not on the eyes of his colleagues. He doesn't even know what coloured eyes most of them have.

_When Ianto Jones is born, he looks into the eyes of his father first. _

_His father has always been bitter. His young mind registers a flash of fights at school, spilt lips, black eyes. _

_His father is surrounded by helplessness, and can see his wife acting a little strangely. His father didn't want another child. _

_His father likes drinking. He sees flashes of beer bottles, of drunken hazes, of a belt and a park. _

Ianto Jones has many rooms in his house.

Each wall begins blank, plain and white. He has more walls than rooms, and even then he actually goes out and orders for a wall to be slotted in where it really shouldn't, separating his bedroom into two pieces, splitting his kitchen into three, making his living room about four different sections.

Each section (because they're too small to be called 'rooms') of his house, the one he inherited from his parents, would be claustrophobic if he were anyone else. As it is, he's not anyone else, and the walls help him to cope, so he goes out, buys string and post-it notes, and uses a whiteboard marker pen to write on the walls.

_When Ianto Jones looks into his mother's eyes, the feeling is entirely different. _

_His mother always stayed as part of the crowd, desperately trying to fit in with the other kids yet so obviously sticking out. _

_His mother can feel something like smoke pressing at her lungs, trapping her mind and cutting off the air supply. _

_His mother goes crazy, ending up in Providence Park. He catches flashes of her watching clocks, watching them tick with vacant eyes. _

He pins up the pieces of string, attaches post-it notes to them covered in writing, makes sure that nothing is going to fall off, and smiles, satisfied.

Some people get more space than others, depending on how important they are, how old they are, how interesting their life is.

Lisa got a lot of space. He stuck up various photos of her, at various points in her life. Sometimes he painted a picture of her to match.

Her own personal timeline.

He's made so many timelines. They started off in notebooks, just scribblings, then as he began to see more, he'd buy scrapbooks and professional art books, drawing pictures and collecting photographs to fit.

Eventually he'd stick things on walls, and, if someone had travelled a lot, he'd make a timeline on top of a world map, using the string wrapped around pins to show where they went, sometimes criss-crossing and adding the post-it notes on their lives along the way.

_Ianto Jones meets his sister Rhiannon Jones. _

_Rhiannon Jones was born about four years before him, and was such an adorable child, though it was obvious that she had a temper and strong spirit already. _

_Rhiannon Jones makes a vow to protect him, even if she'd have rather had a sister. She sees the timelines, too. She can tell he does. _

_Rhiannon Jones becomes Rhiannon Davies. She has two children, and a flash of David and Mica burrow into his head. _

When Ianto Jones goes into work, he avoids eye contact with anyone he hasn't had it with before. It's not so overwhelming when he's already seen their timelines.

Of course, it's always overwhelming with Jack, but Jack Harkness is the exception to everything.

_Ianto Jones goes through most of his life avoiding eye contact, and eventually he gets hired for Torchwood London. _

_Yvonne Hartman was always good at bossing people about, being ice-cold whilst somehow managing to be popular. _

_Yvonne Hartman appreciated his eidetic memory, thinks he is remarkably good at organising things (years of making timelines does that to a person), and he catches a flash of a room for research. He knows the job offer is coming before she says it, and accepts before he's been asked. _

_Yvonne Hartman is taken into a room with drills above her head. He catches a dancing image of an empty white space, of oil tears (but his mind has always been good at dismissing these things, the bad things. A metal figure gets drawn on one of his walls, at the end of a string, and no more thought is given to it.). _

No one in Torchwood Three has ever seen his house. If they did, they'd probably think that, like Suzie, he'd been driven to madness. They'd think he was some sort of stalker, obsessed with these things.

He's considered the possibility himself, but the notion was quickly dismissed. If he doesn't somehow write the information down, it clogs up in his brain filling it. He almost never has to revisit a timeline, doesn't have to even think about them again.

He only gives them a second thought if he has made a certain…bond with someone.

_Ianto Jones meets Lisa Hallet, eventually. _

_Lisa Hallet was confident but nice, lovely, actually. She fit in with everyone and made an effort to include any outsiders. _

_Lisa Hallet welcomes Ianto into her friend-group pretty quickly and easily, being the one to make all the steps towards making him more comfortable around them. He sees an image of her beating heart, of her appreciating life and everything in it. _

_Lisa Hallet falls for him, the two of them going camping in Brittany and sharing a sleeping bag. He sees all the good times with her before he has them, and can't wait to live through them. (If he hears the shriek of a pterodactyl, sees metal grafted onto dark skin or catches the echo of screams, his mind ignores it, writing in very small letters at the end of the timeline 'partial conversion, death'. It's a sticky note that he never looks at, always ignores.) _

Ianto Jones has always dismissed the bad images.

Seriously, the bad futures just sort of…fade from his memory. Or rather, his mind refuses to think about them. They just sort of escape his notice once they're on the timeline.

Like a perception filter.

Besides, he couldn't change the timelines, anyway. He isn't one to believe in predetermined fates and destiny, but when one can see timelines, it's sort of drilled into their heads that they shouldn't mess with things that they don't understand, and probably couldn't prevent.

He wasn't stupid.

Plus, he'd have to redo his timelines (and wouldn't _that _be effort).

_Ianto Jones comes face to face with a Cyberman. _

_The Cyberman's eyes are blank. _

_And, for the first time in his life, Ianto Jones wishes eye-contact would create an image. _

Ianto Jones doesn't let anyone (apart from his sister) into his house. They'd ring a mental institution, for sure, then the people who worked there would get rid of the timelines.

And, while on occasion he's hated seeing them, he just can't imagine life without them.

_Ianto Jones meets Jack Harkness. And, as he lays on top of him, he looks into his eyes. _

_Jack Harkness was surrounded by light, and corpses and wrist-straps and gas masks and bombs and blue boxes and alien eggs and Daleks. He just gets so many flashes, so much history, __**too much **__history. (It isn't hard to get the deaths, to understand the immortality.) _

_Jack Harkness is going to hire him. He likes the suit. _

_Jack Harkness is going to live a very long time. A __**very **__long time. _

Jack Harkness has a wall all to himself.

There's too much history (and future) for Ianto Jones to fit him anywhere else, so he has a huge map, about fifty strings crossing over each other from his various visits to other places, loads of post-it notes and about seventy photographs/drawings.

And that's just the bottom half.

The top half is full of images that he's drawn of all the foreign worlds, full of people like the Doctor and Rose, images of the Boeshane Peninsula, drawings of the inside of the TARDIS, photographs of Harold Saxon and his wife Lucy, a picture of a Toclafane, a poster with a painting of Captain John Hart, even an image of Gray. All these things from his past and future, all put together in the right order.

Jack Harkness has an entire wall all for himself, simply because it wouldn't be right to give him any less.

_Ianto Jones accidently looks in the eyes of Suzie Costello. _

_Suzie Costello had never fit in at school, opting to study hard and surround herself with science. Her father always was horrible to her, claiming that she was meant to be meek and follow a man's rules, something she always refused to do. _

_Suzie Costello is dangerously close to the edge. She was always too deep for her own good – almost as if she drove herself to insanity. He gets flashes of violins playing in time to ticking clocks (the same clocks his mother would think of), of the glove that plays with life and death, the addiction of it all. _

_Suzie Costello ends up committing suicide. He sees her putting the gun under her chin, a woman with black hair sobbing as she watches. Then he sees darkness, then resurrection and Gwen Cooper driving her off ("Just to see your dad") and them talking about death ("It's just darkness") and her killing her father, realising that she'll be sending Gwen Cooper to her death ("You're getting shot in the head, slowly. And believe me, it hurts") and Jack calling, asking why she's doing this ("Why should I stop? I get to live") and feels her desperation ("Because life is all, Jack. And I would do __**anything **__to keep it") and feels her fear of death ("Could you really do it, Jack? When I'm part of her is now me?") and his own chest aches as she is shot so many times, says her dying words ("There's something in the dark, and it's moving. It's coming for you, Jack Harkness!") _

Ianto Jones wrote Suzie Costello's last day in full detail, sticking the pages up. She got half a wall for herself, images of the violins and clocks being drawn and photographed at the end of her timeline. It's one of the few he revisits every day, grieving for her. That's one of the things he likes about his timelines. Empathy. He understands people completely.

But when it's someone's death, he doesn't just get flashes. If it's close, he sees it in full detail, every second.

When the day finally comes, he doesn't look Suzie in the eye. And it's not for his usual reasons. The guy probably thought that he was some sort of stalker.

He gets the feeling that Eugene's been skulking around his house when he was invisible. The

_Ianto Jones ends up looking in the eyes of Owen Harper. _

_Owen Harper never got along with his mother. She loathed him and he loathed her. It was, in fact, because of her that he was so snarky towards everyone, so rude. _

_Owen Harper works at Torchwood because his fiancée died. He actually loves this job, though he wishes every day that Katie was here doing it with him. _

_Owen Harper will be shot in the chest and die. Then he will be brought back, dying forever, slowly going crazy until he saves the life of a girl trying to commit suicide. Then he will die again in a nuclear power plant. Ianto's mind tries to skip over the details this time, making him a timeline (drawings of Katie, information on the zombie-like state, basically his entire life on a wall). _

Ianto Jones has gone to Toshiko Sato's house several times, always plain refusing to go to his. ("It's messy." "_Your_ house is messy?" "I'm not _completely _OCD.")

He never tells her, or anyone, about the timeline. He never told Lisa, never tells Jack, or Owen, or Suzie, or anyone. The only person who knows is Rhiannon Davies (but she can see the timelines, too. It would be pointless to lie to her).

He sometimes wonders if Rhiannon can see _his _timeline. He can see hers, after all.

But neither of them ask what their future is, and neither tells the other.

_During the time with the cannibals, Ianto Jones is in a cellar with Toshiko Sato. During which time, he catches her eye. _

_Toshiko Sato has always been something of a genius. One of five children, her father has never had much time for her. Her mother, however, always made time. That was sued against her eventually. Blackmailed into making a sonic modulator then imprisoned. _

_Toshiko Sato is completely and utterly in love with Owen Harper. He just keeps brushing her off, and each time she just bounces back. _

_Toshiko Sato falls for Mary and Tommy, both of which die. She ends up getting shot in the stomach. They arrive too late to save her. (He puts on a smile and pretends that he doesn't know her fate, that everything's just fine). _

When he gets back to his house, he writes up her timeline, drawing the plans of a sonic modulator and sticking photos of her up and managing to locate images of Mary (he draws a picture of her in true form as well), Tommy from the wartimes and Owen, sticking them all up in the order she met/meets them.

For some reason, he gets the feeling he should write 'Adam' before Owen dies. He doesn't understand the significance of it, but it gives him a headache to think about (forgetting something before he's remembered it), so he just does as his instinct says and adds it.

When Tosh gets the mind-reading pendant, he has no idea if she finds out about the timelines. If she does, she doesn't say anything.

_Ianto Jones finds himself looking into the eyes of Gwen Cooper. _

_Gwen Cooper has always had a good relationship with her parents, and everyone around her. She's always been popular. She meets Rhys Williams in college, the two of them hitting it off immediately. Eventually she manages to become a policewoman, her life's dream, and moves in with Rhys. _

_Gwen Cooper thinks that Torchwood is amazing, if sometimes a little sick. _

_Gwen Cooper will get married to Rhys, have a kid, and grow old happily. She gets her happy ever after. Ianto can't help but be jealous. _

Ianto can't see his own timeline.

He can see bits of it, sure, but he can't see his death. He can't see his own fate.

When Jack leaves, when Beth dies, when Owen gets shot, when all this stuff happens, he's seen it all coming. He just couldn't do anything to stop it.

The whole business with Lisa, with her on the loose – he didn't see that coming. It was mainly because it was his own timeline, but partly because he refused to process failure. It simply hadn't been an option.

Adam messes with his memory, makes him forget about the timelines. He can't even see them when Adam's around.

He goes home and sees the timelines, gets freaked out, and spends the night at the Hub. As soon as Adam goes and he forgets, he goes home and wonders why he feels as if a part of him has been missing.

He never looks Gray, John Hart, or Rhys Williams in the eye. The former two because he's scared of what he'll see, and the last because he doesn't want to know what a normal life is.

When Tosh and Owen die, he's known it was coming. But that doesn't make it hurt any less. He still cries and wonders if he could have changed it, if only he'd put his knowledge to good use.

When the Hub blows up, Jack's timeline had warned him. He knew to get out. He knew to beforehand remove his diary.

Rhiannon looks so sad as he leaves, like she knows that something bad is about to happen. But he shrugs it off. She's always been concerned and over-protective.

But as he goes into the Thames House, he doesn't know that he'll never be leaving.

And as he drifts off into the dark, he realises that his sister saw this coming, just like he saw Tosh and Owen.

He leaves this world, all these timelines, watching the eyes of someone with the most amazing timeline.

**After, Jack Harkness sees Ianto Jones's flat the first time. He is shocked to find timelines of people's lives all over the walls and in large books. **

**He finds that his own timeline is the biggest, covering an entire wall. His life has been written out and posted on a wall, with photographs and drawings and all sorts. (He is careful not to read past the date he's at now.) **

**Rhiannon comes in and explains after a while, about the timelines, about how his whole life Ianto had written them out, made them, content to do that. He'd never shown anyone but her though – he was always too shy. **

**The two of them sit down in the house, and decided what they're going to do. **

**They pay to use a big blank wall in Cardiff, routing through everything to get what they need. **

**Ianto Jones's timeline has finally been made, complete with photograph, information, drawings, post-it notes, everything. **

_**Ianto Jones was born on the 19**__**th**__** August. Ever since the day he was born, he was able to see the timelines of the people he knew when he looked into their eyes. **_

_**Ianto Jones has had many loves in his life, amongst them Lisa Hallet and Jack Harkness. He worked for the Torchwood Institute for many years, fighting aliens and generally saving the world. **_

_**Ianto Jones died in the Thames House after being gassed by the 456. Moments before his death he told Jack Harkness that he loved him. **_

_**His timeline was completed six months later in the House of the Dead. He finally has his own timeline. **_


End file.
